Deplastify the Planet
The ‘Deplastify The Planet’ program is a project-based class coordinated jointly by Schoolab and UC Berkeley Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology (SCET).
The students explore multidimensional aspects of sustainability from plastic pollution, sustainable design all the way to innovative business models. We form diversified teams by mixing undergrads with master students, affiliating different cultures and academic backgrounds. Together, they learn how to research, reflect, create, test and prototype a more sustainable alternative that addresses a real business challenge.
Develop impactful projects
Expand sustainability on existing markets and enter new markets.
Triple Bottom Line
Align business and sustainability within your organisation.
Talent Prospecting
Attract and retain top UC Berkeley talent from diverse backgrounds.
Deplastify the Planet Demo Day: where students pitched their solutions
Explore some of our key projects
Deplastify The Planet: Designing a plastic-free car
UC Berkeley students and Furecia teamed-up to design a plastic-free car a cleaner supply chain by sourcing a natural fiber that can replace the use of plastic by 50%.
Deplastify The Planet: Creating a compostable packaging out of waste
Method, a company that manufactures a wide range of sustainable cleaning products, and Whole Foods, the multinational supermarket chain now acquired by Amazon, paired together to find a circular model for Method’s packaging.
Smart Cycle: How recycling can be improved using IoT
Samsung Strategy and Innovation Center decided to partner with Deplastify the Planet to bring a fresh perspective to some of their current systems. Students looked to rethink Samsung’s products to tackle the plastic crisis by leveraging IoT.
Using blockchain technology to help track plastic waste
At Schoolab’s “Deplastify the Planet”, Lonely Whale teamed up with four UC Berkeley students to solve the traceability issue of plastic waste, and create an incentive system for companies to use recycled and upcycled plastics.
Equitable Design Lab: Innovation and Bias, Increasing Access for Diverse Startups
Schoolab's Equitable Design Lab team built an innovation to eliminate the lack of diversity in participation and expose bias in program performance, creating a more inclusive platform for YouNoodle’s customers.
alumni trained.
projects in the past three years.
corporate partners, local startups and NGOs.
They trusted Schoolab
Kick off
Interdisciplinary student teams collaborate with corporate partners to tackle one big individual challenge for the semester.
OBSERVATION
Identifying stakeholders and mapping out extreme-user interview insights help to reframe the challenge and create a solution roadmap.
IDEATION
Students go into low fidelity rapid prototyping to test their ideas and gather user insights.
PROTOTYPING
This stage brings all the work together into a final prototype with a roadmap pitch for the corporate partner.
Our Partnership with UC Berkeley
We tackle challenges using a user-centered approach by asking ourselves: how might we create a solution that responds to the user’s needs while being economically and environmentally sustainable? Every semester, the ‘Deplastify The Planet’ program brings together students with local start-ups, NGOs, middle-sized enterprises, and global organizations to form a single ecosystem for a more sustainable future.
In running a class on innovation and entrepreneurship, the Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology (SCET) has consistently been a great partner in the past couple of years. The SCET is one of California’s most cutting-edge and innovative centers and welcomes different expertise in technology and engineering to considerably drive change in our society and geography.
